"Don't you think you're jumping the gun a little bit? I mean, the show's not even on the air."
That's how MSNBC's Contessa Brewer opened her June 3 interview with Rabbi Daniel Lapin, who appeared via satellite to discuss his work with the newly-formed Citizens Against Religious Bigotry (CARB) to get advertisers on Viacom's Comedy Central to publicly pledge to not support or underwrite a show currently in pre-production entitled "JC" for Jesus Christ. For full disclosure, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell is a founding member of CARB.
"Just playing devil's advocate here, because I am the daughter of a Baptist preacher, don't you think Jesus Christ is tough enough to withstand it?" Brewer prodded Lapin. After all, "he's a big guy," Brewer argued. [MP3 audio available for download here; WMV video for download here]
Given the irreverent and downright blasphemous treatment Jesus Christ and God have gotten at the hands of "South Park" and Sarah Silverman, Brewer later asked Lapin, in all seriousness, "What if this turns out to be more like a Sunday School lesson than the worst imaginings of you and Bill Donohue of the Catholic League and on and on?"
Really, Contessa? Here's the reported premise of the show:
The cable network has announced that it's developing a series called "JC" -- a half-hour animated show about a dude named Jesus "JC" Christ who wants to escape his dad's (aka God) considerable shadow to chill in New York as a regular guy.
Things have changed on earth over the last 2,000 years and JC quickly discovers that he's a fish (and possibly a few loaves of bread) out of water. He gets little sympathy from a "powerful but apathetic" God, who prefers playing video games to listening to junior blabbering about life in the city.
That's a far cry from the Jesus of the Bible -- "not my will but yours be done" -- as taught in Sunday School.
A preacher's daughter most certainly should know that much.
